in what had become one unending chain. Yellow and black crime scene tape cordoned off my yard, and I’d ducked under it to get to the sidewalk. I didn’t need the reminder, so I turned my back to it.
I’d already given a statement, but I knew the drill. They’d want to talk to me again. There was even a chance that those who didn’t know me might consider me a suspect.
I thought about that for a moment. I guess I’d better be prepared for it. It could very well present itself as an obstacle to my finding Porter and bringing about his end. Someone would set them straight, though, of that I was certain. I was, after all, up to my neck in the previous investigation, and it had been no secret that Porter had tried to kill me. It stood to reason that he would be trying to finish the job, and Felicity would make the perfect pawn.
I gave brief notice to the fact that I was standing outside on Christmas Eve, coldly calculating and planning to kill someone. I knew this should disturb me greatly, but it didn’t. It was a curious feeling, yes, but right now it was keeping me warm.
A quick glance around told me that there were still a few of my neighbors ogling the scene. I didn’t even waste time being angry about it. It wasn’t worth my time.
I heard a loud screech in the distance and turned toward the sound. Thirty yards up the street, Ben Storm’s van screamed around the corner and accelerated through the puddles of luminance cast by the streetlamps. The magnetic bubble of an emergency light flickered wildly on the corner of his roof and he locked up the brakes, sliding to a diagonal halt in front of the house. He was out of the Chevy and running toward me before the engine stopped knocking.
“Rowan, are ya’ okay?” He fired the question at me with genuine concern.
I stared back at him and didn’t utter a word. I took another drag on my cigarette and tried to find a reason not to hit him as hard as I could. Not that I believed I could inflict any damage, but I definitely felt like I wanted to try.
Deep down inside I suppose I knew that this wasn’t his fault, but right now I needed someone to blame. He had known Porter was alive and on the loose, but he’d kept it from me.
While I’d doubted right from the beginning Porter’s demise, that night on the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge, my friend hadn’t believed me. No matter what I’d said, he hadn’t been willing to give in to trust. And then, when I was finally proven correct, he’d hidden the fact from me. Whatever he claimed was his motivation for the secretiveness, at this moment it didn’t wash. It was unacceptable.
I continued to stare into his eyes, feeling my own expressionless face harden to a blank mask.
“Rowan? Talk ta’ me.” His voice held a pleading tone.
I quietly lit another cigarette from the one I’d just finished and then flicked the spent butt out into the street. I took a deep breath and shook my head.
“Where were they, Ben? Where the fuck were all those concerned people that were supposed to be watching after us when the sonofabitch came and took my wife?”
“Rowan…”
“Save it.” My voice was cold and sharp. I could tell that each word was cutting him deeply and I didn’t care. “You had a chance to stop this and you didn’t.”
“Row…”
“Go to hell, Ben,” I cut him off again. “Just fucking go to hell.”
I turned and walked away.
“Benjamin is terribly concerned about you, Rowan.” Helen Storm spoke to me in a soothing voice.
She was direct and wasted no words; still, her tone had the ability to lull one into the fold of her confidence. I was glad that she was here, even if I didn’t show it.
I had been spiraling through the various emotional states one can experience at a time such as this. Disbelief, anger, fear, guilt… All of them rolled into a tense ball that I couldn’t escape. At the moment I was experiencing some form of defiant hostility that had arrived directly on the heels of an uncontrolled fit of sobbing.
“What about you, Helen?” I asked, my dull words forming a weak challenge. “Are you concerned about me too?”
We were seated on my deck, both of us holding lit cigarettes and staring into the darkness. Well, I was staring into the darkness; she could have been staring at me for all I knew. I didn’t bother to check. It was nearing 10 p.m.. Crime scene technicians were still finishing up around the interior of the house but had finally vacated the garage, so this one spot had become my safe haven for the time being. Out of sight, out of mind-if only that really worked.
A biting wind rose and fell in a serpentine arc around the corner of the house and dragged its icy claws across my face. I ignored it. I could hear Helen shift, and I glanced over as she pulled her heavy shawl tighter, but that was her only acknowledgement of the chill.
“Of course I am, Rowan,” she said.
“Humph,” I grunted. “There seems to be a lot of that going around lately.”
“You do understand,” she began and then paused for a brief second. I could tell from her silence that she was gingerly picking the words she was about to use. “There is every indication that your wife has not been harmed.”
“I don’t feel her, Helen,” I stated plainly. “If she was okay, I’d be able to feel her.”
“I am not so certain of that. You have been dealing with a severe emotional trauma, Rowan,” she offered. “I would be greatly surprised if you could feel anything at all in the sense to which you refer.”
Helen was correct. I couldn’t even feel her, and she was sitting right next to me. How could I expect to sense Felicity, wherever she was? The only thing I really felt was bitter hatred for Eldon Andrew Porter.
“So did Ben bring you over here to make sure I didn’t wig out?” I changed the subject.
“Benjamin asked me to come here with him because, as I said, he is very concerned about you.”
“He thinks I blame him for this, doesn’t he?”
“Yes, he does,” she answered. “You all but told him that yourself when we arrived.”
“I guess I do, in a way,” I sighed. “But not completely. Not irrevocably.”
“That is understandable, considering the circumstances. But be aware, Rowan, that he blames himself much more than you blame him. The judgment that my brother is exacting upon himself is a far higher price than you would ever dream of asking.”
“Are you asking me to feel sorry for him?”
“Not at all,” she confessed matter-of-factly. “I am simply showing you both sides of the coin.”
“How clinical of you,” I remarked with an underlying harshness in my voice. “Aren’t you supposed to be coddling me and telling me everything will be okay?”
“If I was dealing with someone else in this situation, perhaps. But not you… And not now. It would serve no purpose.”
“What? I don’t deserve a little coddling? My wife has been kidnapped and is probably dead,” I spat the comment almost angrily.
“What you deserve, and what you want are two vastly different things, Rowan. You know that,” she answered. “Besides, I have a feeling that your particular talents will be necessary to find her, so the time for coddling will have to come later.”
“You seem convinced that she’s still alive.”
“You should be too.”
“I want to be.” I closed my eyes and took in a deep breath. “Gods, I want to be. But then at the same time, for her sake, I have to hope that she isn’t. I saw what he did to his other victims, Helen.”
“I understand that.”
“Do you?” I asked. “Because when I say that I saw what he did, I mean I saw what he did. I saw it… I felt it… I experienced it. To believe that he is doing those things to Felicity, now… That’s more than I can take.”
“Yes, Rowan, I understand that far better than you know.”
“Then you know why it’s hard for me to believe that Felicity is still alive.”
